


Pando

by Schgain



Series: Białowieża [1]
Category: Darkwood (Video Game)
Genre: If you look closely you'll find out pretty much nothing actually happens in this, POV Second Person, Some Theorizing, slight unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13369017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: The Stranger, and his two closest companions.





	Pando

**Author's Note:**

> A short foreword: 
> 
> This was written for my friend Polly for his birthday, and I in a sleepless daze sent him the draft well before his honored date. Let's hope that this remastered version is a fine enough substitute. 
> 
> This piece of writing was inspired by two things mainly:  
> The first being the song [Pando](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXE05kMWF7w) by Squalloscope, who I greatly recommend. The second of which is [this](https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/04/22/wislawa-szymborska-fairy-tales-fear/) article that touches upon the interlacing of fairy tales and fear, and why, when dangerous woods are involved, it is good to be scared.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!

"You've been clearing out the forest, brother." 

You half-turn. The wolfman, coyote-faced and too goddamn chipper for this early in the morning, leans on a shovel and grins at you. A paw gestures towards your gun, and your gloved fingers tighten on it.

"It's just euthanasia." he says like he's agreeing with you. If he sees your frown, it doesn't deter him. "If it's all the same to you, do you think you're doing them all a favor?" 

You flick the safety off. His ear twitches, and his fox smile falters. "Peh," he says, as if he was not for a moment afraid, "if it is all the same to you, I think you do."

You don't want to kill him. Not really. Bastard that he is, potentially murderous freak with a dog for a face that he is, you don't want him dead.

You didn't want any of them dead. You never came here to kill. The Outsiders are not the monsters in the wood and your men were supposed to be the benevolent hunters of this fairy tale. When you see violence and blood and desperation your hands shake and your face is ragged with burn sores and when the Mayor had charged at you, you'd panicked, shot him-- 

It had been the Trader that found you, later, tucked under the roof of a collapsing shed. You'd thrown up the water he'd given you, and he'd patted you on the back the whole while. In the close light you could see the outline of a face only half twisted by the darkness of the wood, but you could not be sure it wasn't just your reflection in his irradiated glass face. 

_Ugly bastard._

"Stranger," says the Wolfman, and you flex your fingers again, coming back into the unpleasant present. He repeats his epithet for you. "Stranger. Did you come here for a reason?" 

You start. Your squadron, your encampment, your dog tags, your name-- 

"I'm selling, if you'd like." He continues.

Oh.

Well, fine.

He hands you bullets and bandages and fungi, something to help with the ugliest parts of the night. He laughs at your distasteful expression, a haunting coughing sound that's more scream than amusement. It brings to mind how far gone he is, and if you weren't so fucking tired of him, of his chatter and his half-baked murder plots and his god-forsaken coyote laugh you might have had some sympathy for him. 

Sometimes when you look at him (when you have to deal with him) you wonder if he was a wolf first, forced into being this fascimile of a man by something intrinsically sour in the soil. If he was twisted towards humanity like the villagers succumb to animalistic frenzy. It would explain him you suppose, but you're used to not getting answers out here. 

_(You and the Doctor have that in common, really.)_

You shove the mushrooms in your bag as hastily as you can without spilling them, and he laughs into a dead man's jacket. He rolls a mushroom in between his claws. "Got your fix? What do you think you'll turn into, brother?" 

You hate it when he reads you like that. A beast with no empathy should not be so _empathic._

Red floods you, just a moment, just enough to blur your vision and your capabilities. Your arm lashes out and you realize too late its your gun hand. You pistol-whip Wolfman and as he yelps, all dog and no man, you make a break for the treeline.

It's Trader, preceded by geiger counter clicks, who finds you at the base of an ugly tree in an ugly wood. Charcoal smell pervades him as he lights a small fire, just enough for two dead men walking to huddle by. He doesn't talk and you don't talk either, and that's fucking enough for once. Silence, a real honest comfortable silence, is like a dream, a hasty half-memory before a doctor and torture and--

You let out a wheeze of fury and loss for things you only barely know you're missing and you imagine putting a bullet in that man's head for what he did to you. Has he moved on to the rest of your men? Has his desperation clouded his knowledge of the truth? How many men must he hurt to be convinced that none of you know of a way out more than the rest of these poor souls?

Your thoughts drift to Maciek, the only name that stays in your addled half-dead brain. Maciek. He meant something to you; brother, comrade, superior.... you don't remember exactly. You need to find him, tell him that one of his men are alive. A hand reaches up to your face and you let out a broken wheeze of helplessness. Fingers curve into claws, ready to scratch at your burns, but a charcoal-stained mitten intercept it. You look to a scene that is hazy in dim firelight: Trader holds your hand, the wool mitten against your skin comforting and soft. And warm. You imagine him smiling. No matter his facial expression (or lack thereof?) he lowers his hand and yours with it, until both rest on your knee. He doesn't take his away and you don't make him. The weight is good. It keeps you here, in front of the fire, instead of fuck knows where thinking about dead men. 

You stare at the embers and think about the jaundice you're sure you're getting as malnourishment takes you. You wish you were a bird or a bear or a salmon or a fisher, something that knew these woods and this night and didn't care about tresspassing lines or eating or sleeping. You'd be a whole fairy tale, or a whole forest. Not like these, with rotten bark and flimsy branches. A proper tree, a quaking aspen that stands golden with eyed white bark. No mushrooms, no nightmares.

A great, trembling giant. That's what you'd be.


End file.
